Archive for the 'photography' Category

Erwin Olaf’s Grief

Published
by
djaef
on February 21, 2008
in photography
. 0 Comments

Grief
One of my absolute favourite modern photographers is the Dutchman Erwin Olaf. His eye for composition is truly outstanding, and the subtlety and delicacy of his work is breathtaking. OK, some of his stuff is not at all subtle - some of his “gay” work is right in your face and very confronting (and brilliant nonetheless). But some of his series have a very quiet maturity to them, and a subtlety that I think in uncommon in modern photography. Particularly the series Rain, Hope and now Grief. Go to his web site and check out “Grief” and the “Grief Portraits”. If you haven’t seen his work before, check it all out. But Grief is truly inspirational work. It’s possible I’m very sensitive to this theme as my older brother went missing over a decade ago, and I have dealt with this topic at first hand, but I think it’s an extremely accessible human condition that we can all be touched by.

As far as aspirational photographers go, he is it for me. The decor, the models, the colour, the composition, the incredible and uncompromising attention to detail - all hallmarks of a truly professional artist. And he has his little quirks that have to make you smile. Keep an eye out for electrical leads and switches. He seems to place them in the majority of his work. What they represent I have no idea, but I like them. They break up the perfect lines a little and add a touch of organised chaos to what is a very very organised scene.

To see some of his commercial advertising work, check out this site.

And Erwin - if you are ever in Australia and need an assistant for free, please, please, please give me a call. :)

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Upgrade or die!

Published
by
djaef
on February 15, 2008
in photography
. 4 Comments

I’m one of those people fascinated by technology. Particularly with its implementation in consumer electronics. If I was a wealthy man, I would have a very, very nice sound system, a top of the line computer or three, an extremely expensive digital SLR, plus any number of gadgets (ipod, mobile etc). As it is, I’m not wealthy at the moment, and so I make do with a good computer with a decent sound system, and an entry level digital SLR.

But since I purchased my last kit a couple of years ago, my camera has been rendered obsolete by two models, and my computer is now very middle of the road, instead of the cutting edge beast it was.

This is natural enough, but the cycles seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Less than three years, and my camera is nearly laughable?? And my computer’s lifespan is only expected to be three short years. Is that OK for something that cost $3000??

Being interested in photography / web design it seems essential that we throw lots of money at our equipment. $5-7000 every couple of years doesn’t seem to be unreasonable at all. And if you want to be a professional, it’s probably three times that at a bare minimum. But it’s starting to get to me. It’s killing my love for consumer electronics. For a start I don’t have that sort of money to throw around. But more to the point, I think it’s obscene that I am virtually forced to do that. Fair enough, one must purchase the latest if one really has to be “up to date” but it’s the life cycles of these products that I think is the problem. A $2500 digital SLR should hold its value and relevancy for more than two years!

It makes me want to become a gardener or something. Technology is becoming a consumer trap, or if you don’t haqve the cash, you are increasingly left out of the game. It used to be you could save up, purchase your equipment and expect it to serve you ten or twenty years. Certainly that was the case with top notch camera equipment. But the world has clearly changed, and these multinational companies have figured out that they can lock us into these absurd upgrade cycles, and we all jump on the bandwagon to keep up to the latest and greatest.

Personally, I’m not happy with my equipment. I need a better camera. If I had a Canon 1Ds MkIII for example, I’dbe happier than a pig in shit. But even that camera, which is the top of the tree as far as digital imaging goes, will be absolutely obsolete in as little as 7 years time. Think of that. It will have been superseded at least three times in that time. It will be like a 10D is now compared to a 4oD. Ancient, and out of date. You would be laughed out of town if you brought it out in a professional context. But is that reasonable? The picture quality would be the same. And considering the 1Ds Mk III, the image quality is absolutely superb. What is the 1ds MkVI going to be like? So much better? I don’t think so. When is enough enough? When will this craziness slow down, and quality cameras made to last 20 years again? When will computers last more than 3 years? Will we ever get off this tragic technological road we have embarked upon? When will anyone give a damn about the mountains of electronic waste clogging our landfills? When will it ever end?

Sorry to say, I think I already know the answer. Today however it is just difficult to cope with. Partly I am driven by jealousy, and as I said, if I was a rich man, I would have succumbed to the temptation long ago. I am the sort of guy who could spend $50,000 on consumer electronics tomorrow. I’d love to. But not having it, and trying to live without it makes me question the whole system. Maybe in the upper markets (Hasselblad, medium format etc) it’s not so pronounced, but even there, digital backs are getting bigger each year…

Hmmm… strange world we live in.

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Workflow Musings

Published
by
djaef
on November 11, 2007
in photography
. 1 Comment

I have been thinking more about workflow. I am a DAM and a DNG convert, and have been slowly trying to turn these approaches and tools into an efficient system. There are several workflow solutions, and it would appear that one of the most popular is the Bridge / iView Media Pro (now Expression Media) combination.

This approach seems to work well, particularly when used in conjunction with dng files. So far, so good. You can rate and tag all your files, and process them in Camera Raw, and then convert them to dng’s with its built in full size jpg preview, and then you have a very useful catalog. The way I see it is that you have an excellent workflow, but one that is of primary benefit to your raw files. But what about the work that’s done in Photoshop? You really need to have a secondary catalog for your master files, but can you get the same benefits from iview or Expression Media from tifs or psd files as you can with dngs? Obviously it makes sense to keep a master file for files where you have cloned stuff out or used layer masks or adjustment layers to improve the image. But master files take up a lot of room. 16bit layered files can fill more than 200MB each. What about taking the dng / camera raw approach a step further and somehow writing all the adjustment layers into the dng in a non destructive way? That way, you wouldn’t have this separation between a raw file catalog and a master file one. Is anyone following? I must admit this is just something I woke up with in my head this morning, so it’s not exactly really well considered, but there are not a lot of photographers whose work can be completely done in camera raw. If you can, well great. But for those who have a collection of raw files (or better, a collection of finely tuned dng files), as well as a collection of master files incorporating lots of adjustment layers and other corrections, then there is this issue of integration. I can’t see how the Bridge / iView Media Pro workflow really incorporates the master files. I suppose you just need a second catalog for them, and that catalogue might be just as useful as the raw one. I’m thinking here of the automated processes that you can get from Bridge or iView / EM, like web galleries, slideshows etc. Efficiency is very important for digital photographers. Understanding how to implement a good and efficient workflow is critical to that goal. These musings are just a way for me to work through the issues as I see them. Maybe I’m just not seeing clearly enough yet. I find the whole DAM thing to be a tad complicated. Hmmm…

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1250 shots in two days…

Published
by
djaef
on October 20, 2007
in photography
. 2 Comments

Now tell me you could do that in the old days of film. Digital certainly has its advantages, and the ability to cut loose with the shutter is one of the main ones. If you take 1250 shots in two days as I just did, and assuming you are at least a reasonably proficient photographer (as I’d like to think I am) then it’s not that hard to come up with 2-300 really nice photos. That’s a ratio of somewhere between 1 in 6 and 1 in 4. In the old days, when you couldn’t afford to take so many shots, you might have, in the same circumstances, taken about 250 shots. The difference being that then, having to take a hell of a lot more care before pressing the shutter, the ratio would have invariably been a lot higher, possibly 1in 3 or 1 in 2. Still that would at best give you 125 great shots, compared to the 320 odd I rated as 2 star (I’m currently very frugal with my rating stars - I want some room for when I get better, you see :)).

So, what was the occasion for taking so many pictures? Well, I shot my first child care center. I did the photos for my daughter’s day care, and in fact I actually took closer to 1500 shots. I just didn’t count all the group shots, as you stand there taking 30 or 40 shots just to get one where they’re all smiling and have open eyes (and even then you have to be very lucky). But I spent two full days shooting the kids while they played, ate and slept. It was a real hoot. Kids are just so amazing to be around - their energy is incredible, and their perspective on life is a real tonic to a cynical 42 year old such as myself (OK, pat on the back time, it’s my birthday today - I’m getting old).

So in the last few days I have been rating and rating, and sorting and renaming, and in the end I hope to do a small exhibition and a whole lot of prints to the parents. It’s a lot different from the line them up against the wall type of shooting common to school shoots, but I wanted to get real shots of the kids, and not just bad portraits.

I will post some shots when I get some releases from the parents. There’s a lot of privacy issues obviously, but I hope to get model releases for most of the shots, so I can use them in folios and web sites and what have you.

But yeah, I just wanted to point out that good photography is not always about skill. You obviously need the technical skill to capture the light in the way you want to, but apart from that, throw a digital camera at kids for two days running, chances are you will come up with some absolute crackers. I did.

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Purists

Published
by
djaef
on August 19, 2007
in photography
. 1 Comment

We had a visit last week at school from the editor of a magazine called Silver Shotz. He was an interesting guy who had a lot of interesting advice and examples of really interesting film based processing techniques, like cyanotypes and salt prints and the like. But in my eyes he undermined his whole talk by being decidedly and openly anti-digital. It’s one thing to be a film enthusiast and to spruik the joys of film based photo arts, as there is a lot of really good stuff you can still only do with film. But to take a stance that says digital is rubbish, and only film is any good is clearly a stance that won’t go down well in a 2007 classroom of photographers. It seems to me that it’s insane not to embrace digital. It’s not going to go away, that’s for sure. Film is the impending dinosaur, and it makes no sense to alienate the next generation to its joys.

Tricks like printing a shot in the darkroom (just casually mind you, no great care taken), and then scanning that image on a drum scanner and printing it out on the latest ink jet to prove that ink jets can’t match it with darkroom output are simply tricks. There’s so much room for bias in that process, especially when the person doing it has already made it clear they are anti digital in the first place… As one person said, ‘yes, the film based one looks a little better, but if I hadn’t seen that, I’d think the ink jet one was fabulous’.

Money is one thing that stops me experimenting more with film based photography. It’s an expensive hobby. The joy of digital is that you can shoot forever and it doesn’t cost anything in ongoing costs. Digital is improving rapidly (this is happening at about the rate computers have experienced in the last decade or so) and before long both capture and output devices will be the equal of any film based technology. So what is there to not like with digital? Are these just old men stuck in there ways, unable to feel the joy of digital? I accept that film based photography is a more hands on experience, but really, who likes the smell of the darkroom, and the toxic poisons used therein?

But I don’t need to be anti-film either. I’m not. I love film. I think the only logical position is to embrace both film and digital technology and get the best from both worlds. Photographic purists remind me of the old men who hated rock and roll and Elvis or art snobs who think photography is not art.

I rally against purists!! Death to the tyrants!! Run them out of town!!! OK, OK, I’ll calm down now, but you get the point. Don’t you?

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Talk about an EOS Accessory

Published
by
djaef
on August 16, 2007
in photography
. 4 Comments

DP Review has a page on the new Canon M30 and M80. It looks cool. I WANT ONE!!!

M80

DNG files (digital negatives)

Published
by
djaef
on August 6, 2007
in photography
. 1 Comment

I’ve been very busy lately and everytime I think to write a post on here, my mind is blank.

Anyway, I was wondering what people think of the DNG format. I have been slowly implementing a DAM workflow, and as a part of that it is recommended that you convert your raw files to DNG files. I fully support open source projects and I think Adobe has the right interests at heart with this project and I think it will definately keep getting more and more common. Hopefully, Canon and Nikon will support dng’s straight from the camera soon (it’s already supported as a native format in some other brand cameras like Hasselblad and Pentax).

So my question is this. Do you support dng? Do you bother? Do you know the benefits? Are you worried about a time when you will not be able to open your proprietary Canon or Nikon raw format files?

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DAM Part 2

Published
by
djaef
on July 15, 2007
in photography
. 5 Comments

If you don’t know what DAM is, I could be rude and suggest you are not a serious photographer. Now I won’t because I am a polite boy, but really, if you are serious about digital photography, you simply have to be serious about DAM.

Basically, it involves everything between getting your images in on to your computer, through to when they are finally archived safely in various locations. It involves rating, labelling, keywording, file formats, catalogues, virtual sets, back ups and a whole lot more. It is the integration between Photoshop, a browser such as Bridge, and catalogue software such as iview Media Pro (now Microsoft Expression Media).

With DAM you are building value to a collection of images by organising them in a way that builds that value. Not only for you as a photographer, but also for your clients.

The bible is The Dam Book by Peter Krogh. Check out the website of course. And the forum. DAM is not a simple concept. Well, conceptually it is simple enough, but in practice it’s not simple. You might need to read the book several times and absorb it for months before doing the painstking work of getting your images into shape. yeah, it’s Boot Camp for digital images alright. I wish I’d read about it when I first bought my digital camera, not a year and 10,000 images later.

I will hazard a guess though - read the book and you’ll say at some point - “damn.. why haven’t I heard of this before”… :)

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Onexposure.net

Published
by
djaef
on June 30, 2007
in photography
. 9 Comments

Onexposure is a photoblog with a difference. The idea behind it is both interesting and problematic. Basically, how it works is this. You join, submit a photo, and if the powers that be think it is good enough, it goes up on the blog under a category. The idea behind this is clearly to achieve and maintain a certain level of quality to the images. But the problematic part of it of course is that the four screeners are putting themselves in a position of judging what is good and what is not. They further put focus on that judgement by having a section where you can see what percentage of your submitted photos have been accepted. And depending on that rating, they allow you to upload more or fewer pictures for submission.

I joined and submitted some pictures to see how the process worked. Of course I submitted stuff I thought was of a decent quality. Many of my initial uploads were accepted but then when some shots were not accepted it made me start to think about the process. Did I really want to have these 4 people sit in judgement on the quality of my work. Where was the line and how could I know what they would think was good. Of course I wanted more exposure for my work, but at what price? I then started selectively uploading different types of shots to see how they would be received. When a photo is rejected, there is a process in which you can appeal a photos judgement. The screener then tells you why a picture has not been accepted. It was here that I lost my interest. I felt the screeners’ judgements were very flawed and I found I didn’t agree at all with what they were saying. I found examples of other pictures on the site I felt were hugely inferior to ones of mine they hadn’t accepted. In the end I realised I wanted nothing to do with the place and of course that’s what I did.

But the question then is what others think. Is this way of engaging in community based photo appreciation a good way? I think not. I think it’s extremely problematic because of the very small number of screeners. If there were 50 screeners and they all ranked a picture, then averaged out that ranking, that’d be a more consistent and reasonable way of doing things. But 4 people sitting in judgement over hundreds of photographers work and thereby getting themselves a very nice looking website in the process seems a bit… cheap. I know of others who have also had problems with this site and those that run it.I have also heard that they re-use the photographs on another of their sites, nowords. I don’t remember seeing this in the terms and conditions when I signed up, but I suppose it was there. If not, it’s unacceptable. Maybe I should go and check…

An alternative way of doing things is weeklyshot. Run by Brandon Stone, this site accepts submissions on a theme, and the users themselves rate the photo in 5 areas. Those that rate highly get featured on the home page. A much more democratic system I think, and a very enjoyable and productive way of getting and giving productive critique.

Basically it boils down to this: It’s hard to have a photo you think is really good rejected. If three people reject it, then it’s easy to think they just don’t have any taste. If 100 people reject it, it’s easier to accept there is something wrong with it. We all know it’s hard to be objective about our own photos, so it makes sense to get feedback on them. But by seeking out the widest possible feedback will give you the most balanced view of how people generally view a photograph. And even if 100 people hate your picture, remember there will probably be someone out there that loves it.

Silver with Distinction

Published
by
djaef
on June 14, 2007
in photography
. 9 Comments

It’s time to blow my own trumpet.. Two of my photograhs were awarded at the 2007 Canon Australian Professional Photography Awards just a few weeks back. One, entitled Feet First was awarded a Silver with Distinction, and the other, Reflection got a Silver award. Competing directly against professional photographers across Australia, I must admit I’m stoked to achieve such fabulous results on my first attempt at a national photography competition. It’s going to be difficult to follow up on this, but I’m very happy nonetheless.

Feet First

Feet First

Reflection

Reflection